After they wrap up the security suite, either retreating or cleaning it out, they'll want to get to their loved ones. Kirkman will suggest taking a back route, through engineering as it shouldn't be that populated. I'll still run an random encounter or 2 as they get there. I will likely have them rescue Ethel...I like the spunky old lady idea.

Then I'll run engineering somewhat as written. Introducing the automatic gun fire, and then having an alarm automatically sound, signaling everyone to go to the auditorium. Some sort of emergency.
Kirkman will explain there are sensors on the ship that can detect things like automatic gun fire, and when there is a ship off the side of the Pinnacle, will sound an alarm on the bridge, notifying the Captain that there is gun fire and potentially a pirate or terrorist ship nearby. If the captain does not respond, it signals an alarm throughout the ship, asking everyone to go to the auditorium as that was designed to be a huge safe room against some sort of threat. "We will have to assume Romero is dead or he would have prevented the alarm from going off."

Now I've given my players all kinds of things to think about. They will probably assume the soldiers are terrorists. They will also need to decide if they want to try to get to the crew quarters or auditorium. They will be fairly close to each other, so their choice won't be a big burden.

I'm considering having Hartten kill Kirkman as a replacement for Forthington. Unless they successfully rescue him from security. I'm giving them email guilt about leaving Forthington to die. So we'll see where that goes.

I'm also considering having Ethel step up and tell Hartten to sit down and shut up, setting up a confrontation between the old woman and Hartten, putting the characters right in the middle. Not sure about this yet. We'll have to see how attached they get to Ethel.

Eventually, we'll have an escape scene where they have to board some lifeboats. That's going to be a big map to draw and a fairly lengthy event.

It's unlikely I'll be able to sneak any bitten victims on as my players will insist on examining everyone, to the point of being completely unreasonable.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, anyone who dies (short of due to brain injury, and excluding the rare "immune" person) is going to come back as a zombie of some sort. That particular fact of the epidemic might not yet have been illustrated, and this could be a perfect "laboratory environment" of sorts to either demonstrate this to the heroes, or at least provide a strong clue for it.

It needn't even be a suicide (though that could still be reasonable given the circumstances and if things get ugly enough on board the lifeboat). Someone could have been injured by other means during the escape, or in the general madness (e.g., someone got hit by an errant bullet). Or, someone might simply be in poor health, and the stress of the situation is too much.

Or, if things with Ms. Hartten get way out of hand, there could be a fight between her supporters and everyone else, and an Extra gets killed in the middle of it -- before we can just assume an instant "burial at sea." Surprise! Zombie in the mix._________________

It's unlikely I'll be able to sneak any bitten victims on as my players will insist on examining everyone, to the point of being completely unreasonable.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I've got time to fill.

When I ran WotD, the players weren't the only ones to escape in a lifeboat - some of the NPCs lowered another lifeboat into the water at the same time. I told one of the players that he saw an NPC on the other boat get bitten as he climbed in, but in the rush and chaos he couldn't identify who it was.

After they were free of the cruise ship, and brought their lifeboats together, he insisted on examining the NPCs for bites, but he couldn't find any. He wasn't sure whether they were hiding it, or whether their clothing had stopped the bite, but the NPCs on the other boat became increasing disgruntled about being examined.

In the end nothing came of it, but the players were pretty paranoid that one of the NPCs was going to turn into a zombie.

It needn't even be a suicide (though that could still be reasonable given the circumstances and if things get ugly enough on board the lifeboat). Someone could have been injured by other means during the escape, or in the general madness (e.g., someone got hit by an errant bullet). Or, someone might simply be in poor health, and the stress of the situation is too much.

It doesn't even need that level of complexity. It just needs for someone to have completely lost hope; they fall asleep and die while unconscious, having lost the will to live.

That was one of the most gripping parts of World War Z (for me) - the talk with the filmmaker fighting ADS (Asymptomatic Demise Syndrome / Apocalyptic Despair Syndrome). People just giving up and dieing in the night, 100 a day in the secured part of the USA.

It happens once and suddenly there are zombies all over the life boat. _________________"Got a problem? I've got the solution: Rocket Launcher."
"Not against a Servitor."
"... We're all gonna die."

Our next session is Tuesday and I'm looking at something Jordan did and I'm trying to decide how/if to play it out.

In Jordan's game the player's radioed the main land before landing at the marina. Hell and his Ghost Rider's intercepted that message and greeted them when they arrived. Obviously, this did not go well for his players. Now I suspect my players will decide to radio ahead. So that leaves me with a decision....let them land and follow the plot as written, or follow Jordan's lead and throw them right into the fire.

There are a few differences, my players are armed, mostly glocks, and they will likely get their hands on a couple automatic weapons based on some email exchanges we have going on. So they won't be unarmed like Jordan's players.

I definitely have at least one hot head who would likely fight till he was dead. I have no issue with killing him since he plays most of his characters the same way.

So I'm looking for input. Follow it as written, or throw some more fire at them.

Our next session is Tuesday and I'm looking at something Jordan did and I'm trying to decide how/if to play it out.

In Jordan's game the player's radioed the main land before landing at the marina. Hell and his Ghost Rider's intercepted that message and greeted them when they arrived. Obviously, this did not go well for his players. Now I suspect my players will decide to radio ahead. So that leaves me with a decision....let them land and follow the plot as written, or follow Jordan's lead and throw them right into the fire.

There are a few differences, my players are armed, mostly glocks, and they will likely get their hands on a couple automatic weapons based on some email exchanges we have going on. So they won't be unarmed like Jordan's players.

I definitely have at least one hot head who would likely fight till he was dead. I have no issue with killing him since he plays most of his characters the same way.

So I'm looking for input. Follow it as written, or throw some more fire at them.

Thoughts?

This is a VERY problematic scene, probably one of, if not the most, problematic in the entire Chapter 1.

What Jordan did, helped skirt, just barely, the necessity of making the group feel arbitrarily captured. As written, the scene has to be handled with MUCH care. No group wants to be captured. Most will fight their captors with everything they have, to the point of TPK.

I warned my group before we ever started playing that occasionally the odds would be so overwhelming that surrender wasn't anything to be ashamed of, but at some points would be necessary to survive and protect other lives.

Still, my group was prepared to fight it out. I really had to make Hell seem palatable on the surface, more misguided than anything else. I also showed examples of how strong a leader he was. I had his men incredibly organized, every biker had a role in sweeping the marina. That he was a master general and strategist. That came off well. I also had to beef up the bikers' numbers and armament. Show the players that they were carrying obvious grenades and such.

When the group was getting ready to fight anyway, someone played the adventure card that summons reinforcements for the enemy in exchange for everyone getting another adventure card. So, I had the Ghost Riders that were following behind the main group roll up in a pair of stolen Humvees and the cube van they would use to transport the group to town (Beaufort, in my game). The sight of .50 cal mounted weapons on the roof of those Humvees really gave them pause.

In the end, the diplomatic character decided to try to negotiate out of it, and all of the party was captured except one guy who hid in the woods and then followed the group to town. That actually worked really well.

So I'm looking for input. Follow it as written, or throw some more fire at them.

Just to clarify, the way it played out in my game wasn't really what I'd planned. I hadn't stopped to think about the presence of a radio (particularly since none was accounted for in the adventure as written), and I was expecting the heroes to reach the Marina as planned and encounter the house -- the change for me was going to be that Hell & Co. would not be *immediately* showing up (I thought that was entirely too coincidental), and in my version, the broadcast message from the President was going to be live rather than a recording (as I figured civilization should take a *little* longer to collapse completely).

However, the PCs had thought of using a radio to try to call for help upon reaching land, and when I checked for the sort of equipment that would be on a life boat of that size, a radio was among the things listed. They wanted to try calling on CB channels -- and I had imagined that a convoy of the size of Hell's group would likely rely upon CBs for coordination, and therefore it just seemed natural that Hell would be the one to reply. It just went downhill from there when the PCs naively answered questions about what people were with them (and women and children!) and how NOT armed they were.

I suppose if the PCs HAD gotten some weapons, things would have progressed the same way ... unless the PCs had convincingly and casually mentioned that they had some weapons, and then I think Hell would've had to play things a bit more cautiously. If the heroes had managed to fight off the bikers fair and square, though, I wouldn't have forced a loss just to stick to the scripted "capture event." There would be plenty of other opportunities to make enemies and go through a zombie-infested town in search of supplies, thus recycling some of the events that would've been otherwise skipped. If not "Hell Fuerrie," it could be some other biker/raider/militia/survivalist/whatever antagonist that could make a name for himself as a gadfly for the heroes for a while.

In any case, the problem of what to do with the player who's likely to go down fighting is still going to be around -- since War of the Dead has quite a few instances where the heroes are more-or-less doomed to be outnumbered and outgunned. If it's going to be an issue, I suppose it's going to come up sooner or later. If the character is supposed to be an experienced combatant, I'd try to give the player a realistic assessment of the risk factor he's up against (e.g., "These aren't 20 kobolds with daggers you're up against"). If he takes it on anyway, and things go south ... well, I just hope it doesn't end up dragging the whole group down into a firefight. (The "Loyal" Hindrance at times seems to be taken for "If one PC starts shooting, we all have to get in on it, even if we're hopelessly outgunned.")_________________

DG, I'm almost up to that section in your write ups, so I'm curious to read how you handled it.

You both bring up good points, I know my guys will hate the get captured thing. At the same time, if they leave their loved ones behind and I beat them up with it again(I used it a little on the cruise ship), they'll never leave them behind again and with 6 players, throwing a few significant others on top, the group gets very unwieldy.

I think I'm leaning to run it more as written, find Henry first, then introduce the Ghost Riders. I do like the way Ferret ran it, leaving Spiderbait behind, so I will likely keep that...I like the shootout at the house.

In the end, the diplomatic character decided to try to negotiate out of it, and all of the party was captured except one guy who hid in the woods and then followed the group to town.

When I ran it, one of the players remained hidden in the woods as well. The others sneaked into the house and got captured - but as Henry had sneaked into the house with them, he knew where the player was hiding, and spilled the beans when Hell threatened to kill Eleanor. Several of the Ghost Riders circled around behind the player with automatic weapons and captured him.

But still, the player hated it. Even though I could justify their capture, they felt railroaded, moreso I think than any other scene. They had no vehicle though, so if they hadn't been captured they'd have had to sit out the next session.

DG, I'm almost up to that section in your write ups, so I'm curious to read how you handled it.

You both bring up good points, I know my guys will hate the get captured thing. At the same time, if they leave their loved ones behind and I beat them up with it again(I used it a little on the cruise ship), they'll never leave them behind again and with 6 players, throwing a few significant others on top, the group gets very unwieldy.

I think I'm leaning to run it more as written, find Henry first, then introduce the Ghost Riders. I do like the way Ferret ran it, leaving Spiderbait behind, so I will likely keep that...I like the shootout at the house.

Decisions, decisions.
Thanks for the input guys.

Let me know what you think when you get there.

I'll see you your 6 players and raise you to my 8 players. Talk about unwieldy.

I left Spiderbait behind at the house to have a little fun with the hostages as well.

Still reading through it. So much going on. I like how you handled the guy who wouldn't get tied up. I suspect I'll have a similar issue with one of my players. I might take the opportunity to kill him just to make the statement, life in the new world isn't safe...at all.

I've been putting off prepping for the past few days, thinking, the story is already written, I've got to draw a map of the house and put in a few more details, then I realized...those details are what make it special! With the story already in front of me, I should be working harder on the details!

I'm just so used to 4e D&D where you just build a pile of encounters, tie them together with a bit of story, and let your players loose to kill everything. SW gives you so much more with regards to story telling and RP. Maybe it's the system, maybe it's my players maturing, who knows, but there is far more RP than die rolling so far.

Prep, I need to decide exactly where they land, then create the map for the house....anyone have one pre-built for maptools?
I need to fill in the NPCs, more concrete stats, pictures, etc.

I'm just so used to 4e D&D where you just build a pile of encounters, tie them together with a bit of story, and let your players loose to kill everything. SW gives you so much more with regards to story telling and RP. Maybe it's the system, maybe it's my players maturing, who knows, but there is far more RP than die rolling so far.

Prep, I need to decide exactly where they land, then create the map for the house....anyone have one pre-built for maptools?
I need to fill in the NPCs, more concrete stats, pictures, etc.

I'm from a D&D background as well (almost 30 years of DMing it before I moved on... though not 4e - I moved on before that). I get "culture shock" moments in SW regularly. The system really lends itself to detail and role-play. The combats aren't the focus. We actually haven't had an all-out combat in about 3 episodes. Last one was in the church.

I didn't do the house, but one can be easily found on a "free house floor plan" site and blown up to use for minis. I've done that before.

Help. I have a player that is just sucking my will for this. His 2 latest requests:

Another idea I'd like to try: I want to cut the backs of the chairs off and fashion them into shields. We would need to make handles, and I'm sure we could poke two very thin slits in them and then slide through straps from the life jackets tied in a loop through the slips to fashion hand holds. We could even leave the lifejacket connected to the shield for extra padding. That would probably work as a decent light shield. According to the book, a light shield weighs 8 pounds and gives you +1 to parry. A medium shield weighs 12 pounds and gives +1 parry, +2 armor to ranged shots that hit.

If that works, we can outfit the group with shields. There's 382 life jackets and 370 chairs.

One more idea: We have a TON of padded life jackets and straps. With some time and a little ingenuity, I think we could pretty easily make a padded suit of bite-proof light armor. It wouldn't protect hands or your head, but I think it would render you pretty bite-proof, or at least offer good protection. I would argue it could serve as well as leather armor, which covers torso, arms, legs, weighs 15 pounds, and grants +1 to armor. With 382 life jackets, we should definitely be able to fashion some bite-protection for ourselves.

I appreciate his desire for ingenuity, but it's really taking most of the threat out of the game. Granted, Hell and his boys will tear that stuff off him immediately. So maybe I'll just let him have it. But it still takes a lot of the threat away.

I don't think that trying to vie for a +1 to Parry or +1 to Armor is outrageous. I certainly don't think it "takes the threat away." I think, rather, it shows that the heroes are taking the threat seriously enough to try to make the most of their limited resources to get whatever slight edge they can.

In any case, it's not going to make anyone zombie-proof. However, I DO think that if someone is going to make makeshift "padded armor," there's no way it should be just as effective as dedicated leather armor without some sort of drawback (e.g., increased bulk, reduced reliability).

You could perhaps offer up a short list of "improvised" gear that might be fashioned from items at hand. Please note that they are better in some respects than merely "improvised weapons," but still inferior to dedicated, properly-made gear.

For the sake of brainstorming, here are some ideas for ways I might implement some of the crazy things PCs might try....

Improvised Shield, Basic:
Little more than a large rigid surface. "Assembly" just involves breaking off the parts you don't need.

Manufacture: No roll required -- just a piece of furniture, etc., presumably sturdy, that might be used to fend off attacks.

For less-sturdy materials, apply the FLIMSY characteristic: If an enemy misses by just 1 (i.e., rolled what would have been a hit if not for the +1 Parry from this makeshift shield), there is a 50% chance the shield is broken and rendered useless.

---

Improvised Shield, Buckler:
A chair back, some padding, some belts or bungee cords, and something to hold it all together. Basically a "buckler," meant to provide some ability to deflect attacks while not being especially bulky.

Statistics: Weight 10 lb; +1 Parry; worn on arm as a buckler. FLIMSY: If an enemy attacks and misses by 1 (i.e., would have hit if it weren't for the buckler), there is a 50% chance the buckler is broken and useless (until rebuilt).

Manufacture: Repair check; 2 hours of work; requires suitable rigid surface, padding, belt or other straps, and at least one roll of duct tape or other reinforcement. A Raise on the Repair roll is required to remove the Flimsy attribute.

---

Improvised Shield, Durable:
A "weaponized" piece of furniture, padding, etc., perhaps supplemented with an excess of cords and duct tape, it's big, bulky, and not entirely effective, but better than trying to fend off zombies bare-handed.

Manufacture: Repair check at +1; 2 hours of work; requires suitable rigid surface, belt or other straps, and at least one roll of duct tape or other reinforcement.

---

Patchwork Armor:
This represents a "Road Warrior" conglomerate of sports gear, deliberately layered thick clothing, an excess of duct tape, or some other likely way to hinder zombie teeth. By its nature, however, this is composed of lots of bits and pieces, and parts are likely to get torn off when wrestling with zombies.

Manufacture: No Repair roll necessarily required -- just a suitable collection of thick clothing, protective gear, etc. This DOES NOT STACK with other armor protection; if you find yourself a proper helmet, its protection replaces the "50% / +1 Armor" bonus for the head, if better, but the basic weight is still the same. Requires 30 minutes just to get "suited up" properly. At GM's discretion, if the materials are particularly unwieldy (e.g., duct-taping on stadium cushions or life preservers,) a successful Repair check is required, or it takes twice as long to put on.

---

Motorcycle Suit:
Full leather bodysuit or equivalent -- the sort of thing that helps to keep your body in one piece if you wipe out on a motorcycle in normal times, but which have a similar benefit (at least for a little while) if exposed to zombies. A hazard suit might have similar effect. Note that this is not "armor" in the strict sense; just because something is "leather" doesn't mean it's "leather armor" -- for that, you'd need boiled leather and padding.

Statistics: Armor 0 to torso, arms, legs; Weight - lb. Note that while this DOES NOT reduce damage, it still prevents zombie bites from breaking the skin -- thus providing protection against immediate infection, at least until you're so Incapacitated that a zombie can just do a coup de gras and tear you apart.

Manufacture: Not applicable; you just have to get lucky and find it. Sorry, there aren't any on the life boat.

---

Duct-Tape Armor:
Cardboard + duct tape + summer time = heat exhaustion. (I know from experience.) However, it could make it a little harder for zombies to break the skin with their teeth.

Statistics: Armor 0 to torso, arms, legs, head; -1 Stealth; Weight 10 lb. Offers no real protection against damage, except to count as "armor" for purposes of protecting from infection on bites. CAN be combined with Patchwork Armor for the purpose of minimizing bite risk (but with cumulative bulk).

Manufacture: Lots and lots of duct tape -- at least 10 rolls for full coverage, and 2 hours to put on properly. Having a dedicated set of outerwear to apply the duct tape to allows for reuse.

---

Rain Poncho:
Useful to protect you against the heavy rains, but also makes it a little less convenient for a zombie to sneak up and make a surprise-attack bite on your neck. This represents a THICK, old-style poncho -- not one of those lightweight and easily shreddable cheap versions.

Manufacture: May be found; if improvised from other materials (e.g., some tarp or upholstery), double the effective bulk/weight to 4 lb. Sadly, there are no *heavy* ponchos of this type on the life boat.

---

Pole:
This is basically like a spear, but without the sharp pointy bit, presumably made from sturdier, modern materials than a medieval quarterstaff -- but unfortunately with a bit of give and "flop." (For that, just use a long shovel handle, etc., and the staff stats.) Useful to give to less-skilled allies to help them defend themselves ... and so they can assist you in pinning zombies while you dispatch them (Gang-Up bonuses + Reach 1).

Manufacture: Requires finding some scrap material that is pole-like -- something sturdier than plastic conduit, to be sure -- and then applying some electrical tape or duct tape for a grip, or wearing thick gloves so you don't bruise your hands from repeated use.

---

Note: If you want to emphasize how unwieldy a lot of this is, you might keep in mind that if this is an ocean cruise, it's probably in warm weather at a warm time of year. Running around in armor -- makeshift or otherwise -- is likely to be especially exhausting. This is modern day, after all, not with warriors and knights we can expect to be trained and experienced in going about like this. You might call for a Vigor check each day of exerting oneself in heavy "armor" in hot weather (failure meaning you gain a level of Fatigue that won't go away until you can get a good night's sleep)._________________

Don't worry too much about "getting those darn PCs". One of your dice will suddenly ace and they'll die horribly, especially when the zombies have a +4 gang-up bonus +2 Test of Wills bonus and +2 unarmed defender bonus. Even a d4 can hit when it's got a +8 on the attack.
I recently killed two near-Legendary PCs with random gunfire from mooks. No fancy techniques (Double-Tap, etc.), no aiming, just two nameless Extras shooting two big heroes dead in the middle of two separate battles (back-to-back sessions). These things happen._________________"Got a problem? I've got the solution: Rocket Launcher."
"Not against a Servitor."
"... We're all gonna die."